The Space to Imagine Music

Visual art is a roundabout, subconscious influence on my songwriting that is often a relief from words and music.

There was a phase in my life where I felt trapped inside a songwriter. Most words read or heard were squirreled away in a notebook for lyric ideas. When the notebooks started blocking the exits, I decided to go easy on the words and discovered I had a yen for visual art. I was barely exposed to art growing up and had no patience for drawing or crafts. All I wanted to do circled around music — listening to it, dancing to it, playing, singing and writing songs.

In my late 20s, almost a decade into a career as a songwriter and singer, I married a Texan and moved from Los Angeles (my hometown) to Fort Worth (his hometown). The only people I knew in Fort Worth were my mother in law, my husband’s ex-wife, and his two young daughters. Shortly after we got there I realized I had married not only a great musician and producer, but a very good golfer. If you are not a golfer, all I can tell you here is that it is addictive and takes a lot of time to become good. With the abundance of fine courses and golfers all around us, my schedule opened up.

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The songwriter in me thought I should fill all this extra time when my husband wasn’t around by working. I did, but also got stir-crazy at home, so I went to look for a quiet place to write lyrics and found the Kimbell Art Museum.
I will admit it wasn’t the beautiful building or the wonderful collection that hooked me at first — it was the cake they served in the cafe every afternoon. I would have the child’s-size square of cake and a cup of tea, write a few lyric ideas and then spend the rest of my time making friends with the paintings. It was the beginning of my relationship with visual art — a different sort of honeymoon.

Back in Los Angeles more than a decade later, I walked down into Chris Burden’s “Exposing the Foundations of the Museum,” which looked liked an ancient altar dug into the floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art and was moved beyond words or music. The room Mr. Burden left for me in his work (to think, feel and imagine) was powerful.

Lyrically, songs can be so noisy when one is trying to be clever, or to follow a chattering stream of consciousness. “Foundations” was quiet and strong. Standing in the foundation of the museum looking at the dirt and rock made me think about why we make art, why we need art and how easy it is to forget about these questions when commerce is involved. I would like to tell you how this piece influenced my songwriting, but I think it is still shaping me… Working in a deep place under the learned foundations of this songwriter’s mind.

Sam Phillips began her career writing and recording six albums with the producer T Bone Burnett. Since then, she has composed and performed the score to “Gilmore Girls” and released several albums, including the current “Push Any Button.” Her website is samphillips.com.